Transitioning Google Apps [Manage Conflicting Accounts]

I know quite a few people that are going through a little bit of pain at the moment with conflicting accounts on the Google Apps for domains transmission. I also know this is not normally an Office software problem, however I have enough users that use Google Docs and other Google services (like Google Groups and Youtube), that this has become an issue that warrants a solution.

If you have no idea what this means, then this post is probably not for you. However, if you are one of the many people or businesses who host their domain and/or email with Google Apps, then you are probably familiar with the Google apps transition that we’ve all being going through and causing us much pain bringing us many benefits.

Note: If you (or your domain admin) have already transitioned your account and have conflict problems, then you basically need to run through these steps as well, however step 5 will have already been done for you.

Conflicting accounts happen when you have an email address in your Google Apps account, and the user has set up other Google services using the same email address. A full description of the conflicting account issue is here. You can avoid this by getting your user to perform the following steps.

If your user already has an email address that is not being used in a Google Account, then have that email address ready. If they don’t (i.e. all email addresses are associated with Google accounts), then they will need to create one. Yes I know it’s a pain, however it’s apparently necessary. I use the live.com (hotmail) email addresses as they have free account forwarding. Set one up and have that email address ready.

Follow the instructions to change the email address to the one that you noted in step 1. (Make sure you verify the email address by going to the inbox for that account and clicking on the link there.)

Once this has been done, you (or your domain administrator) can now transition the account in the Google Apps Account Dashboard.

Note: At the end of this, you will have two Google accounts: you@your-domain.com and one associated with the email address you used in this process. You will have access to your Google Groups, Youtube account, etc through both. It will be up to you whether you move things from one to the other and delete one of the accounts.

The good news is that once you have gone through all this pain the transition, it should be easier for you to manage your Google account.

My Skills

Who is behind Guide2Office?

My name is Stephanie Krishnan and I'm passionate about the way that open source software and its community can help small businesses and individuals with their productivity and lives. One of the biggest arguments I get from business owners, however, is lack of support options. I decided to put together my own support blog to help people be productive at various levels with various Office software, including OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, NeoOffice, MS Office and Apple products! Read More…